Schanze

Schanzen in the shape of an enclosed redoubt; here shown as incorporated into a verschanzten Linie or "fortified line". The schanze is additionally protected in this example by a couvreface

A schanze is, according to the specialist terminology of German fortification construction, an independent fieldwork, that is frequently used in the construction of temporary (not permanent) field fortifications.[1] The word is German and has no direct English equivalent, although the word sconce is derived from Dutchschans, which is cognate to the German word.

In everyday German speech, however, it is commonplace to refer to permanent fortifications as schanzen, because in many places in times of war, fieldworks that were only temporarily thrown up were later turned into permanent fortifications.

Contents

The word Schanze derives originally from the fact that, during sieges in the Late Middle Ages, temporary defensive positions had frequently been built out of gabions, known in German as Schanzkörbe.[2] Later such schanzen very often consisted of earthen ramparts. As a result, in the 16th century, the verb schanzen became generally associated with earthworks of all kinds. In modern German military use, schanzen is still used to mean the construction of smaller earthworks, especially of fire trenches. From this already derived usage comes the phrase sich verschanzen, "to entrench oneself" in yet another derivative sense.

As a rule a schanze is an independent fortified work. To block a valley or a pass, however, a line of adjacent schanzen could be erected, not infrequently connected by a low rampart and ditch. In this case it is referred to as a verschanzte Linie – a fortified line of schanzen. If such a defensive line completely enclosed an area on all sides, it was described as a verschanztes Lager – a fortified (with schanzen) position. It was not uncommon in the 17th and 18th centuries for weaker armies to construct such works in order to protect themselves from a stronger foe.[1] During sieges fortified lines of schanzen were often used as lines of contravallation or circumvallation.

Depending on the layout, a distinction is made between "open" (offene) and "closed" (geschlossene) schanzen. The closed type are further divided into redoubts, that only have outward-facing angles, and "star schanzen" (Sternschanzen) with alternating inward and outward facing corners. In open schanzen, which may take the shape of a flèche, redan, half-redoubt, lunette, hornwork or even more complex designs, the gorge is open, i.e. the side where the army was encamped or on which their own defences lay, was unfortified.[1]

1.
Fortification
–
Fortifications are military constructions or buildings designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and also used to solidify rule in a region during peace time. Humans have constructed defensive works for many thousands of years, in a variety of increasingly complex designs, the term is derived from the Latin fortis and facere. From very early history to modern times, walls have been a necessity for cities to survive in a changing world of invasion. Some settlements in the Indus Valley Civilization were the first small cities to be fortified, in ancient Greece, large stone walls had been built in Mycenaean Greece, such as the ancient site of Mycenae. A Greek Phrourion was a collection of buildings used as a military garrison. These construction mainly served the purpose of a tower, to guard certain roads, passes. Though smaller than a fortress, they acted as a border guard rather than a real strongpoint to watch. The art of setting out a camp or constructing a fortification traditionally has been called castramentation since the time of the Roman legions. Fortification is usually divided into two branches, permanent fortification and field fortification, there is also an intermediate branch known as semi-permanent fortification. Castles are fortifications which are regarded as being distinct from the fort or fortress in that they are a residence of a monarch or noble. Roman forts and hill forts were the antecedents of castles in Europe. The Early Middle Ages saw the creation of towns built around castles. Medieval-style fortifications were made obsolete by the arrival of cannons in the 14th century. Fortifications in the age of black powder evolved into much lower structures with greater use of ditches and earth ramparts that would absorb, Walls exposed to direct cannon fire were very vulnerable, so were sunk into ditches fronted by earth slopes. The arrival of explosive shells in the 19th century led to yet another stage in the evolution of fortification, steel-and-concrete fortifications were common during the 19th and early 20th centuries. However the advances in warfare since World War I have made large-scale fortifications obsolete in most situations. Demilitarized zones along borders are arguably another type of fortification, although a passive kind, many military installations are known as forts, although they are not always fortified. Larger forts may be called fortresses, smaller ones were known as fortalices

2.
Siege
–
A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by attrition or assault. This derives from sedere, Latin for to sit, Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static defensive position. Consequently, an opportunity for negotiation between combatants is not uncommon, as proximity and fluctuating advantage can encourage diplomacy, a siege occurs when an attacker encounters a city or fortress that cannot be easily taken by direct assault and refuses to surrender. Failing a military outcome, sieges can often be decided by starvation, thirst, or disease and this form of siege, though, can take many months or even years, depending upon the size of the stores of food the fortified position holds. During the process of circumvallation, the force can be set upon by another force of enemies due to the lengthy amount of time required to starve a position. During the Warring States era of ancient China, there is textual and archaeological evidence of prolonged sieges and siege machinery used against the defenders of city walls. Siege machinery was also a tradition of the ancient Greco-Roman world, during the Renaissance and the early modern period, siege warfare dominated the conduct of war in Europe. Leonardo da Vinci gained as much of his renown from the design of fortifications as from his artwork, Medieval campaigns were generally designed around a succession of sieges. In the Napoleonic era, increasing use of more powerful cannon reduced the value of fortifications. In the 20th century, the significance of the classical siege declined, with the advent of mobile warfare, a single fortified stronghold is no longer as decisive as it once was. Modern sieges are more commonly the result of smaller hostage, militant, the Assyrians deployed large labour forces to build new palaces, temples, and defensive walls. Some settlements in the Indus Valley Civilization were also fortified, by about 3500 BC, hundreds of small farming villages dotted the Indus River floodplain. Many of these settlements had fortifications and planned streets, mundigak in present-day south-east Afghanistan has defensive walls and square bastions of sun-dried bricks. City walls and fortifications were essential for the defence of the first cities in the ancient Near East, the walls were built of mudbricks, stone, wood, or a combination of these materials, depending on local availability. They may also have served the purpose of showing presumptive enemies the might of the kingdom. The great walls surrounding the Sumerian city of Uruk gained a widespread reputation, the walls were 9.5 km in length, and up to 12 m in height. Later, the walls of Babylon, reinforced by towers, moats, in Anatolia, the Hittites built massive stone walls around their cities atop hillsides, taking advantage of the terrain. In Shang Dynasty China, at the site of Ao, large walls were erected in the 15th century BC that had dimensions of 20 m in width at the base and enclosed an area of some 2,100 yards squared

3.
Late Middle Ages
–
The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history generally comprising the 14th and 15th centuries. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the modern era. Around 1300, centuries of prosperity and growth in Europe came to a halt, a series of famines and plagues, including the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the Black Death, reduced the population to around half of what it was before the calamities. Along with depopulation came social unrest and endemic warfare, France and England experienced serious peasant uprisings, such as the Jacquerie and the Peasants Revolt, as well as over a century of intermittent conflict in the Hundred Years War. To add to the problems of the period, the unity of the Catholic Church was shattered by the Western Schism. Collectively these events are called the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages. Despite these crises, the 14th century was also a time of progress in the arts. Following a renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman texts that took root in the High Middle Ages, combined with this influx of classical ideas was the invention of printing, which facilitated dissemination of the printed word and democratized learning. These two things would lead to the Protestant Reformation. Toward the end of the period, the Age of Discovery began, the rise of the Ottoman Empire, culminating in the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, eroded the last remnants of the Byzantine Empire and cut off trading possibilities with the east. Europeans were forced to seek new trading routes, leading to the expedition of Columbus to the Americas in 1492 and their discoveries strengthened the economy and power of European nations. The changes brought about by these developments have led scholars to view this period as the end of the Middle Ages and beginning of modern history. However, the division is artificial, since ancient learning was never entirely absent from European society. As a result there was continuity between the ancient age and the modern age. Some historians, particularly in Italy, prefer not to speak of the Late Middle Ages at all, but rather see the period of the Middle Ages transitioning to the Renaissance. The term Late Middle Ages refers to one of the three periods of the Middle Ages, along with the Early Middle Ages and the High Middle Ages, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodization in his History of the Florentine People. Flavio Biondo used a framework in Decades of History from the Deterioration of the Roman Empire. Tripartite periodization became standard after the German historian Christoph Cellarius published Universal History Divided into an Ancient, Medieval, for 18th-century historians studying the 14th and 15th centuries, the central theme was the Renaissance, with its rediscovery of ancient learning and the emergence of an individual spirit

4.
Gabion
–
A gabion is a cage, cylinder, or box filled with rocks, concrete, or sometimes sand and soil for use in civil engineering, road building, military applications and landscaping. For erosion control, caged riprap is used, for dams or in foundation construction, cylindrical metal structures are used. In a military context, earth- or sand-filled gabions are used to protect sappers, infantry, leonardo da Vinci designed a type of gabion called a Corbeille Leonard for the foundations of the San Marco Castle in Milan. Other uses include retaining walls, noise barriers, temporary walls, silt filtration from runoff, for small or temporary/permanent dams, river training. They may be used to direct the force of a flow of water around a vulnerable structure. Gabions are also used as fish screens on small streams, a gabion wall is a retaining wall made of stacked stone-filled gabions tied together with wire. Gabion walls are usually battered, or stepped back with the slope, gabion baskets have some advantages over loose riprap because of their modularity and ability to be stacked in various shapes. Gabions have advantages over more rigid structures, because they can conform to subsidence, dissipate energy from flowing water and resist being washed away and their strength and effectiveness may increase with time in some cases, as silt and vegetation fill the interstitial voids and reinforce the structure. They are sometimes used to prevent falling stones from a cut or cliff endangering traffic on a thoroughfare, the life expectancy of gabions depends on the lifespan of the wire, not on the contents of the basket. The structure will fail when the wire fails, galvanized steel wire is most common, but PVC-coated and stainless steel wire are also used. PVC-coated galvanized gabions have been estimated to survive for 60 years, Some gabion manufacturers guarantee a structural consistency of 50 years. In the United States, gabion use within streams first began with projects completed from 1957 to 1965 on North River, Virginia and Zealand River, more than 150 grade-control structures, bank revetments and channel deflectors were constructed on the two U. S. Forest Service sites. Eventually, a portion of the in-stream structures failed due to undermining. In particular, corrosion and abrasion of wires by bedload movement compromised the structures, other gabions were toppled into channels as trees grew and enlarged on top of gabion revetments, leveraging them toward the river channels. Gabions have also used in building, as in the Dominus Winery in the Napa Valley, California by architects Herzog & de Meuron. There are various designs of gabions to meet particular functional requirements. For example, Bastion, a gabion lined internally with a membrane, typically of nonwoven geotextile to permit use of a granular soil fill, mattress, a form of gabion with relatively small height relative to the lateral dimensions, commonly very wide. For protecting surfaces from wave erosion and similar attack, rather than building or supporting high structures, trapion, a form of gabion with a trapezoidal cross section, designed for stacking to give a face that is sloping rather than stepped

5.
Rampart (fortification)
–
In fortification architecture, a rampart is a length of bank or wall forming part of the defensive boundary of a castle, hillfort, settlement or other fortified site. It is usually broad-topped and made of excavated earth or masonry or a combination of the two, hillforts, ringforts or raths and ringworks all made use of ditch and rampart defences, and of course they are the characteristic feature of circular ramparts. The ramparts could be reinforced and raised in height by the use of palisades and this type of arrangement was a feature of the motte and bailey castle of northern Europe in the early medieval period. The composition and design of ramparts varied from the mounds of earth and stone, known as dump ramparts, to more complex earth and timber defences. One particular type, common in Central Europe, used earth, stone, vitrified ramparts were composed of stone that was subsequently fired, possibly to increase its strength. Well known examples of classical stone ramparts include Hadrians Wall and the Walls of Constantinople. After the fall of the Roman Empire in Europe, there was a return to the use of earthwork ramparts which lasted well into the 11th century. As castle technology evolved during the Middle Ages and Early Modern times, ramparts continued to part of the defences. Fieldworks, however, continued to use of earth ramparts due to their relatively temporary nature. Parapet, a low wall on top of the rampart to shelter the defenders, crenellation, rectangular gaps or indentations at intervals in the parapet, the gaps being called embrasures or crenels, and the intervening high parts being called merlons. Loophole or arrowslit, an opening in a parapet or in the main body of the rampart. Chemin de ronde or wallwalk, a pathway along the top of the rampart but behind the parapet, which served as a fighting platform and a means of communication with other parts of the fortification. Machicolation, an overhanging projection supported by corbels, the floor of which was pierced with openings so that missiles, brattice, a timber gallery built on top of the rampart and projecting forward from the parapet, to give the defenders a better field of fire. At the same time, the plan or trace of these began to be formed into angular projections called bastions which allowed the guns mounted on them to create zones of interlocking fire. Exterior slope, the front face of the rampart, often faced with stone or brick, interior slope, the back of the rampart on the inside of the fortification, sometimes retained with a masonry wall but usually a grassy slope. Parapet which protected and concealed the defending soldiers, banquette, a continuous step built onto the interior of the parapet, enabling the defenders to shoot over the top with small arms. Barbette, a platform for one or more guns enabling them to fire over the parapet. Embrasure, an opening in the parapet for guns to fire through, terreplein, the top surface or fighting platform of the rampart, behind the parapet

6.
Defensive fighting position
–
A defensive fighting position is a type of earthwork constructed in a military context, generally large enough to accommodate anything from one man to a small number of soldiers. The Tobruk name may have derived from its initial conception or idea by Rommel in the Siege of Tobruk, a foxhole is one type of defensive strategic position. It is a pit used for cover, usually for one or two men, and so constructed that the occupants can effectively fire from it. It is known more commonly within United States Army slang as a position or as a ranger grave. It is known as a hole in the United States Marine Corps, a Gun-Pit in Australian Army terminology. In British and Canadian military argot it equates to a range of terms including slit trench, or fire trench, during the American Civil War the term rifle pit was recognized by both U. S. Army and Confederate Army forces. During the fighting in North Africa Specifically in Tobruk - Libya and this was a very shallow excavation allowing one man to lie horizontally while shielding his body from nearby shell bursts and small arms fire. The slit trench soon proved inadequate in this role, as the few inches of dirt above the body could often be penetrated by bullets or shell fragments. It also exposed the user to assault by tanks, which could crush the man inside a shallow slit trench by driving into it. After the Battle of Kasserine Pass, U. S. troops increasingly adopted the modern foxhole, the foxhole widened near the bottom to allow a soldier to crouch down while under intense artillery fire or tank attack. Foxholes could be enlarged to two-soldier fighting positions, as well as excavated with firing steps for crew-served weapons or sumps for water drainage or live enemy grenade disposal. The Germans used hardened fortifications in North Africa and later in other fortifications, such as the Atlantic Wall, the Germans knew them officially as Ringstände, the Allies called them Tobruks because they had first encountered the structures during the fighting in Africa. Frequently, the Germans put a turret from an obsolete French or German tank on the foxhole and this gave the Tobruk enhanced firepower and the gunner protection from shrapnel and small arms. Modern militaries publish and distribute elaborate field manuals for the construction of DFPs in stages. Initially, a shell scrape is dug, much like a very shallow grave. Each stage develops the fighting position, gradually increasing its effectiveness, in this way, a soldier can improve the position over time, while being able to stop at any time and use the position in a fight. The fire step usually slopes down into a narrow slit called a grenade sump at the bottom to allow for live grenades to be kicked in to minimize damage from grenade fragments. When possible, DFPs are revetted with corrugated iron, star pickets, ideally, the revetting will also be dug in below ground level so as to minimise damage from fire and tank tracks

7.
Black Forest
–
The Black Forest is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany. It is bounded by the Rhine valley to the west and south and its highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres. The region is roughly oblong in shape with a length of 160 km, the Black Forest stretches from the High Rhine in the south to the Kraichgau in the north. In the west it is bounded by the Upper Rhine Plain, in the east it transitions to the Gäu, Baar, the Black Forest is the highest part of the South German Scarplands and much of it is densely wooded. From north to south the Black Forest extends for over 150 kilometres, attaining a width of up to 50 kilometres in the south, and up to 30 kilometres in the north. Tectonically the range forms a lifted fault block, which rises prominently in the west from the Upper Rhine Plain and it is here, in the west, where the highest mountains and the greatest local differences in height are found. The valleys are narrow and ravine-like, but rarely basin-shaped. The summits are rounded and there are also the remnants of plateaux, geologically the clearest division is also between east and west. Large areas of the eastern Black Forest, the lowest layer of the South German Scarplands composed of Bunter Sandstone, are covered by seemingly endless coniferous forest with their island clearings. The most common way of dividing the regions of the Black Forest is, however, until the 1930s, the Black Forest was divided into the Northern and Southern Black Forest, the boundary being the line of the Kinzig valley. The term High Black Forest referred to the highest areas of the South, the boundaries drawn were, however, quite varied. In 1931, Robert Gradmann called the Middle Black Forest the catchment area of the Kinzig and in the west the section up to the lower Elz, a pragmatic division, which is oriented not just on natural and cultural regions, uses the most important transverse valleys. In 1959, Rudolf Metz combined the earlier divisions and proposed a tripartite division himself. It is divided into six so-called major units and this division was refined and modified in several, successor publications up to 1967, each covering individual sections of the map. The mountain range was divided into three regions. The northern boundary of the Middle Black Forest in this classification runs south of the Rench Valley and its southern boundary varied with each edition. In 1998 the Baden-Württemberg State Department for Environmental Protection published a reworked Natural Region Division of Baden-Württemberg, to the southwest it is adjoined by the Black Forest Grinden and Enz Hills, along the upper reaches of the Enz and Murg, forming the heart of the Northern Black Forest. Their exit valleys from the range are all oriented towards the northwest

8.
Meyers Konversations-Lexikon
–
The first part of Das Grosse Conversations-Lexikon für die gebildeten Stände appeared in October 1839. In contrast to its contemporaries, it contained maps and illustrations with the text, there is no indication of the planned number of volumes or a time limit for this project, but little headway had been made by the otherwise dynamic Meyer. After six years,14 volumes had appeared, covering only one fifth of the alphabet, another six years passed before the last volume was published. Six supplementary volumes finally finished the work in 1855, ultimately numbering 52 volumes, Das Grosse Conversations-Lexikon für die gebildeten Stände was the most comprehensive completed German encyclopedia of the 19th century, also called der Wunder-Meyer. The complete set was reprinted 1858-59, the son of Joseph Meyer, Hermann Julius, published the next edition, entitled Neues Conversations-Lexikon für alle Stände, 1857–60, that would only count 15 volumes. To avoid a long-time project, subscribers were promised it would be completed three years, and all volumes appearing later would be given free. Of course, it was finished right on time, the 2nd edition, Neues Konversations-Lexikon, ein Wörterbuch des allgemeinen Wissens, appeared 1861-67, the 3rd edition, now from Leipzig, was issued as Meyers Konversations-Lexikon. Eine Encyklopädie des allgemeinen Wissens 1874-78, both had 15 volumes, the 4th edition, consisting of 16 volumes, appeared in 1885-90, with 2 supplements of update pages, vol.17 and vol. The 5th edition had 17 volumes, Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, ein Nachschlagewerk des allgemeinen Wissens,1893 to 1897. This edition sold no less than 233,000 sets, the 6th edition, entitled Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, was published 1902-08. It had 20 volumes, and the largest sale of all Meyer editions, the First World War prevented an even bigger success. There was also the small 1908 edition, Meyers Kleines Konversations-Lexikon, the 7th and 8th editions were both briefly named Meyers Lexikon. The 7th edition counted only 12 volumes, due to the depression of the twenties. It came with a condensed single-volume version known as the Blitz-Lexikon, the 8th edition remained incomplete due to wartime circumstances, out of 12 planned volumes only volumes number 1 through 9 plus the atlas volume number 12 could be issued. The buildings of the company were destroyed by the bombing raids on Leipzig in 1943/44. In 1953 the place of business was moved to Mannheim in West Germany, the 9th edition, now from Mannheim, entitled Meyers Enzyklopädisches Lexikon in 25 Bänden, appeared in 1971-79. Just like the very first, this final Mannheim edition was the most comprehensive German encyclopaedia of the century, from Leipzig came Meyers Neues Lexikon, embedded in the Marxist ideology. In 1984, the Bibliographisches Institut Mannheim amalgamated with its biggest competitor in field of reference books F. A. Brockhaus of Wiesbaden, in a so-called Elefantenhochzeit

9.
Ancient history
–
Ancient history is the aggregate of past events from the beginning of recorded human history and extending as far as the Early Middle Ages or the Postclassical Era. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with Sumerian Cuneiform script, the term classical antiquity is often used to refer to history in the Old World from the beginning of recorded Greek history in 776 BC. This roughly coincides with the date of the founding of Rome in 753 BC, the beginning of the history of ancient Rome. In India, ancient history includes the period of the Middle Kingdoms, and, in China. Historians have two major avenues which they take to better understand the ancient world, archaeology and the study of source texts, primary sources are those sources closest to the origin of the information or idea under study. Primary sources have been distinguished from secondary sources, which cite, comment on. Archaeology is the excavation and study of artefacts in an effort to interpret, archaeologists excavate the ruins of ancient cities looking for clues as to how the people of the time period lived. The study of the ancient cities of Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, the city of Pompeii, an ancient Roman city preserved by the eruption of a volcano in AD79. Its state of preservation is so great that it is a window into Roman culture and provided insight into the cultures of the Etruscans. The Terracotta Army, the mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in ancient China, the discovery of Knossos by Minos Kalokairinos and Sir Arthur Evans. The discovery of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann, most of what is known of the ancient world comes from the accounts of antiquitys own historians. Although it is important to take account the bias of each ancient author. Some of the more notable ancient writers include Herodotus, Thucydides, Arrian, Plutarch, Polybius, Sima Qian, Sallust, Livy, Josephus, Suetonius, furthermore, the reliability of the information obtained from these surviving records must be considered. Few people were capable of writing histories, as literacy was not widespread in almost any culture until long after the end of ancient history, the earliest known systematic historical thought emerged in ancient Greece, beginning with Herodotus of Halicarnassus. He was also the first to distinguish between cause and immediate origins of an event, the Roman Empire was one of the ancient worlds most literate cultures, but many works by its most widely read historians are lost. Indeed, only a minority of the work of any major Roman historian has survived, prehistory is the period before written history. The early human migrations in the Lower Paleolithic saw Homo erectus spread across Eurasia 1.8 million years ago, the controlled use of fire occurred 800,000 years ago in the Middle Paleolithic. 250,000 years ago, Homo sapiens emerged in Africa, 60–70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa along a coastal route to South and Southeast Asia and reached Australia

10.
Broch
–
A broch is an Iron Age drystone hollow-walled structure of a type found only in Scotland. Brochs belong to the classification complex atlantic roundhouse devised by Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s and their origin is a matter of some controversy. The theory that they were defensive military structures is not accepted by modern archaeologists. Although most stand alone in the landscape, some examples exist of brochs surrounded by clusters of smaller dwellings, the word broch is derived from Lowland Scots brough, meaning fort. In the mid-19th century Scottish antiquaries called brochs burgs, after Old Norse borg, place names in Scandinavian Scotland such as Burgawater and Burgan show that Old Norse borg is the older word used for these structures in the north. Brochs are often referred to as duns in the west, antiquaries began to use the spelling broch in the 1870s. A precise definition for the word has proved elusive, brochs are the most spectacular of a complex class of roundhouse buildings found throughout Atlantic Scotland. Researcher Euan MacKie has proposed a smaller total for Scotland of 104. The origin of brochs is a subject of continuing research and this view contrasted, for example, with that of Sir Lindsay Scott, who argued, following Childe, for a wholesale migration into Atlantic Scotland of people from southwest England. Meanwhile, the increasing number – albeit still pitifully few – of radiocarbon dates for the use of brochs still suggests that most of the towers were built in the 1st centuries BC. A few may be earlier, notably the one proposed for Old Scatness Broch in Shetland, Caithness, Sutherland and the Northern Isles have the densest concentrations, but there are also a great many examples in the west of Scotland and the Hebrides. Although mainly concentrated in the northern Highlands and the Islands, a few occur in the Borders, on the west coast of Dumfries and Galloway. In a c.1560 sketch there appears to be a broch by the next to Annan Castle in Dumfries. This small group of southern brochs has never been satisfactorily explained, the original interpretation of brochs, favoured by nineteenth century antiquarians, was that they were defensive structures, places of refuge for the community and their livestock. They were sometimes regarded as the work of Danes or Picts, from the 1930s to the 1960s, archaeologists like V. Gordon Childe and later John Hamilton regarded them as castles where local landowners held sway over a subject population. The castle theory fell from favour among Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s, once again, however, there is a lack of archaeological proof for this reconstruction, and the sheer number of brochs, sometimes in places with a lack of good land, makes it problematic. Brochs close groupings and profusion in many areas may indeed suggest that they had a defensive or even offensive function. Often they are at key strategic points, in Shetland they sometimes cluster on each side of narrow stretches of water, the broch of Mousa, for instance, is directly opposite another at Burraland in Sandwick

11.
Castro culture
–
Castro culture is the archaeological term for the material Celtic culture of the north-western regions of the Iberian Peninsula from the end of the Bronze Age until it was subsumed by Roman culture. This cultural area extended east to the Cares river and south into the lower Douro river valley and it was the result of the autonomous evolution of Atlantic Bronze Age communities, after the local collapse of the long range Atlantic network of interchange of prestige items. These villages were closely related to the settlements which characterized the first Bronze Age, frequently established near the valleys. These early hill-forts were small, being situated in hills, peninsulas or another naturally defended places, the artificial defenves were initially composed of earthen walls, battlements and ditches, which enclosed an inner habitable space. The major inner feature of these multi-functional undivided cabins were the hearth, circular or quadrangular, since the beginning of the 6th century BCE the Castro culture experienced an inner expansion, hundreds of new hill-forts were founded, while some older small ones were abandoned for new emplacements. Sometimes, human remains have been found in cists or under the walls, not only did the number of settlements grow during this period, but also their size and density. Carthaginian merchants brought imports of wine, glass, pottery and other goods through a series of emporia, commercial post which sometimes included temples and other installations. While the archaeological record of the Castro Iron Age show suggests a very egalitarian society, many of them also presented an inner and upper walled space, relatively large and scarcely urbanised, called acrópole by local scholars. These oppida were generally surrounded by ditches and stone walls, up to five in Briteiros. Gates to these oppida become monumental and frequently have sculptures of warriors, Cividade de Bagunte was one of the largest cities with 50 hectares. The cities are surrounded by a number of smaller castros, some of which may have been defensive outposts of cities, such as Castro de Laundos, that was probably an outpost of Cividade de Terroso. A cividade may also have been the origin of Bracara Augusta, although there are no archaeological findings apart from an ancient parish name, Bracara Augusta later became the capital of the Roman province of Gallaecia, which encompassed all the lands once participant of the Castro culture. During the next century Gallaecia was still theatre of operation for Perpenna, Julius Caesar, but only after the Romans defeated the Asturians and Cantabrians in 19 BCE is evident—thought inscriptions, numismatic and other archaeological findings—the submission of the local powers to Rome. Strabo wrote, probably describing this process, until they were stopped by the Romans, pollen analyses confirms the Iron Age as a period of intense deforestation in Galicia and Northern Portugal, with meadows and fields expanding at the expense of woodland. They also grew beans, peas and cabbage, and flax for fabric and clothes production, other vegetables where collected, nettle, large quantities of acorns have been found hoarded in most hill-forts, as they were used for bread production once toasted and crushed in granite stone mills. The second pillar of local economy was animal husbandry, gallaecians bred cattle for meat, milk and butter production, they also used oxen for dragging carts and ploughs, while horses were used mainly for human transportation. They also bred sheep and goats, for meat and wool, wild animals like deer or boars were frequently chased. Archaeologists have found hooks and weights for nets, as well as open seas fish remains, mining was an integral part of the culture, and it attracted Mediterranean merchants, first Phoenicians, later Carthaginians and Romans

The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period were the period of European history generally comprising the 14th and 15th …

From the Apocalypse in a Biblia Pauperum illuminated at Erfurt around the time of the Great Famine. Death sits astride a lion whose long tail ends in a ball of flame (Hell). Famine points to her hungry mouth.

The rampart of the Cité de Carcassonne in the Aude department of France. Originally constructed in the 4th century AD by the Romans, they were largely rebuilt in 1240 and heavily restored in the 19th century.

The city walls of Jaisalmer, India, also known as Jaisalmer Fort due to its size and complexity in comparison to other city walls. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is considered one of the largest and best preserved city walls, along with its Medieval Indian town, where many of the stone-carved buildings have not changed since the 12th century.